Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!agate!shelby!neon!lucid.com!jwz
From: jwz@lucid.com (Jamie Zawinski)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Is this the end of the lisp wave?
Message-ID: 
Date: 19 Jan 91 09:46:25 GMT
References: <127724@linus.mitre.org> <97216@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
	<3953@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@lucid.com
Organization: Lucid, Inc., Menlo Park, CA
Lines: 18
In-reply-to: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk's message of 16 Jan 91 18:04:23 GMT

In article <3953@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) wrote:
>
> I think you are right to suggest that it's much more straightforward
> to deliver the executable when using C.  But C also has advantages
> when delivering the source.  Because more machines come with C
> compilers than with Lisps, C is in practice more portable (even
> though, as a language, it seems to provide more opportunities for
> machine-dependence).

Not to restart the Language War to End All Language Wars again, but...  I
really disagree with you that C source is more portable than Lisp!  How many
bits is an "int"?  A "short"?  What kind of padding and alignment nonsense is
inserted into structures?  In Lisp these sorts of issues almost never matter,
but in C they almost always do.  If something is written in Common Lisp,
you're pretty much guarenteed it will work in any CL.  If something is 
written in K&R C, all bets are off.

		-- Jamie